Kogi Assembly Threatens to Sanction MD of KIPL

Ibrahim Oyewale Lokoja

The Kogi State House of Assembly has threatened to recommend the sanction of the Managing Director of Kogi Investment and Property Limited (KIPL), Ms. Aisha Suleiman, if she failed to appear before the ad-hoc committee investigating the operation of mining companies in the state.

This was sequel to the inability of Suleiman to appear before the assembly who had requested her presence for clarification.

While speaking at the meeting, a member representing Igalamela/Odolu State Constituency, Mr. Cosmas Atabor, made this known during the sitting of the committee at the Reverton Hotel, Lokoja.

The managing director has been invited to appear before the committee to respond to questions begging for answers or risk being sanctioned.

Atabor who is a member of the committee berated the executive officer of KIPL for always putting up excuses before the committee like other stakeholders have been doing.

The lawmaker noted that part of the agreements between Obajana/Dangote Cement Company was that a Director of Kogi extraction should represent the state on the board of the company and KIPL was nominated to shoulder same responsibility since 2010 bringing in Kogi shares to the state but KIPL failed in doing this.

Atabor further noted that when Kogi Super Cement, a product of CINAFINDEV, a company in which Kogi State has 15 percent, debuted in the market in 2018, KIPL did nothing to ask for what should accrue to the state.

He alleged that CINAFINDEV is initiated by businessmen who had run aground a textile company in Kaduna and subsequently came to Kogi to make business and would stop at nothing to maximise profit to the detriment if the state while KIPL looked on.

The legal luminary added that findings at JAKURA Marble industry which is under the watch of KIPL are unbelievable and some questions are begging for answers.

In his remarks, a Journalist and Publisher of Law and Policy Maker, Mr. Friday Ogungbemi, attributed the rip off of Kogi State to inability of supervising agencies to post field officers to such companies, adding that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as well as KIPL should be hard hit for this.

The committee would reconvene today (Wednesday).